TV Ratings May 22: Nine #1 with razor-thin margin over Seven

Mediaweek editor James Manning looks at last night’s TV ratings

• Nine #1 but has razor-thin margin lead over Seven
• House Rules outrates The Voice and MasterChef
• Have You Been Paying Attention? back above 850,000

Nine has ranked #1 in primary channel share for the second consecutive night. However, the margin last night was just 0.2 ahead of Seven. Nine was #1 in Sydney and Melbourne with Seven in control elsewhere.

Seven managed to rank #1 in combined channel share as 7TWO recorded a share of 4.3%, outrating SBS, as 7TWO’s Foyle’s War attracted over 200,000 viewers.

Helping Nine keep its edge were Nine News, A Current Affair and The Voice.

Seven’s House Rules had another good night with a second successive 1m audience.

TEN had a second successive Monday share over 16% with MasterChef close to 950,000 and another bumper Have You Been Paying Attention? crowd.

Seven

Seven News was the leader at 6pm with 1.13m. Seven News at 6pm averaged 1.03m M-F last week.

Home and Away opened its week on 760,000 after a week 20 average of 681,000.

House Rules saw some amazing scoring as Kate and Harry dropped below Fiona and Nicole on the scoreboard after they failed with the bonus room. They weren’t happy. The episode did 1.02m after 1.04m on Sunday. The Monday episode last week did 901,000.

Seven Year Switch lifted too with 609,000 last night after an average of 524,000 for the two episodes last week.

Late night with Gordon Ramsay then saw Hotel Hell on 309,000 and then Kitchen Nightmares USA on 199,000.

Nine

Nine’s 6.30pm number of 1.13m again crept ahead of the 6pm audience of 1.07m. The 6pm average M-F last week was 1.02m and 6.30pm was 999,000.

Items on A Current Affair last night seen by the audience of 948,000 included the Apex gang, criminals being rehabilitated and supermarkets. Last week the program averaged 821,000 M-F.

The second of The Voice’s Knockout episodes ahead of the Battle Round episodes next week did 989,000. This was down on 1.05m for the final Blind Audition episode last week.

Lip Sync Battle then did 394,000.

Footy Classified had a late night three-market audience of 171,000 with 120,000 in Melbourne.

TEN

The night started with Family Feud on 404,000.

The Project started on 433,000 at 6.30pm with the audience lifting to 653,000 after 7pm. Special guests last night included Tim Ross, who was promoting his new book “The Rumpus Room”.

MasterChef featured a challenge no chef would ever want to face, let alone some home cooks looking to forge a career in the industry. The three all failed to complete the challenge so it was unlucky that Bryan had to go despite his colleagues also failing to deliver as instructed. The good news in the credits was Bryan has been doing work experience with former MasterChef contestant Reynold. The former TV dessert king Reynold will feature in a three-pin immunity challenge to screen tonight. The Tuesday audience was 936,000, up on 868,000 on Monday last week.

After last week’s record audience of 878,000, Have You Been Paying Attention? pushed close again with 859,000. Abby Coleman made a welcome return to the panel, sitting alongside other guests Fifi Box and Peter Helliar.

ABC

The second part of the Australian Story special on screen writer Luke Davies did 606,000 after 657,000 were watching part one last week.

Four Corners was just over 600,000 after 654,000 a week ago.

Media Watch was down a little week-on-week from 628,000 to 600,000.

Q&A did 438,000, close to last week’s 423,000.

SBS

How To Get Fit Fast was the channel’s best on 169,000 at 7.30pm.

The return of The Island With Bear Grylls managed 103,000 at 8.30pm before the numbers climbed higher to 138,000 for 24 Hours In Emergency.

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